Pair of Bottle Coolers (seaux à rafraîchir)

c. 1740

manufacturer

Mennecy- Villeroy Factory

(French)

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Culture

France, Villeroy, 18th century

Medium

Tin-glazed soft-paste porcelain with enamel decoration

Measurements

Overall: 15.7 x 21.9 x 18.8 cm (6 3/16 x 8 5/8 x 7 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

John L. Severance Fund 1947.60

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Location

216A French and German

Did You Know?

The four figures on horseback are derived from prints French designer Jean Antoine Fraisse modeled after textiles, lacquers, and porcelains found in the collection of Louis-Henri, duke of Bourbon.

Description

These bottle coolers combine a traditionally European form based on silver models with designs and compositions that emulate Chinese and Japanese porcelain. Towering over the figures the luxuriant, vividly colored vegetation is characteristic of chinoiserie, imitations of East Asian decoration and design common in 18th-century European decorative arts. Distorted by the European imagination, these imitations were not accurate representations of the cultures from which they drew inspiration.